I understand completely but you’ve come to the right best place for diabetic cats so take a breath because we can help you navigate the uncertainty and ups and downs of feline diabetes!!
yes is the answer to your feeding questions. I’m going to copy what I just said to another new member since your food questions are exactly the same and you’re both using Vetsulin. There’s no need to feed him twice a day only. That’s very old-fashioned advice that works for dogs not cats, who as you mentioned, are grazers. It does, I’m afraid, go hand in hand with your vet’s selection of Vetsulin which is also called caninsulin because it was created for canines who have a much slower metabolism than cats. What this means is that it hits hard and fast and it’s short- lasting so your cat is not protected for a full 12 hours. Also please know that with Vetsulin you have to make sure your cat has food onboard at least 30 minutes before the shot because, again it hits fast. Back to feeding, smaller meals throughout the day are easier on their already compromised pancreas and help to avoid big sugar spikes. Most of us feed the 2 larger meals at shot time and smaller meals throughout the day. That can be just a smaller amount of the same food or low carb treats like freeze dried, regular chicken or turkey or even baby food. Any low carb treat like the Churu lickables even is a-okay. Unregulated cats also can’t process the nutrients in food well so they eat but are still hungry and will continue to lose weight.
if she is hungry, feed her as much as she’ll eat right now. Diabetic cats also burn calories just by peeing since theirs sugar in their urine. My second diabetic cat Bobo was ravenous at first and I was feeding him a lot more then as he got regulated his apetite started to normalize again and once he went into remission, he was back to his finicky pick eater self.
We see a lot of vets here who treat their cat patients the same way they treat dogs because they don’t know a lot about feline diabetes. Unfortunately most vets do not know a lot about feline diabetes….they have many animals to look after and they all have differentdiseases and treatments. Vets also get their information about nutrition from the big cat food manufacturers so they are biased in what they recommend. I know it’s hard to not follow your vet’s guidance because we think they’re experts but my cat only got better when I stopped listening to my vet. And yes, I couldn’t call every time I had a question, which was multiple times a day, but I could post here and get folks who held my hand through it all!
With a diabetic cat you need:
- A low carb wet diet that is 10% carbs or under. Most of us use around 4-7% carbs
- A suitable insulin such as Lantus or Prozinc which are long acting, more gentle insulins than the old insulins.
- We recommend hometesting the blood glucose with a human meter…it is not necessary to use a pet meter which is expensive to run and is no better. What meter did you get? It will keep your kitty safe and you will know how the dose is working for your kitty. Only testing every so often at the vet will not tell you what is happening in between those times and an awful lot can happen in even a day. You want to test at least 4 times a day, before each shot and then once more during the day and once more in the evening before going to bed so you can gauge how the overnight cycle is going to be. For the pre-shot tests, you need to make sure wuou withhold food for at least 2 hours before so you get the true bg value not influenced by food. You don’t have to do that for the other tests. In the beginning, you want to see numbers above 200 for the preshot tests as that’s a safe number to shoot.
- HELP US HELP YOU has information about the spreadsheet, signature and hypo box which you will need to be able to look after your beloved kitty properly, especially on Vetsulin.
A word of warning though…don’t change the food you are feeding at the moment over to the low carb food until you are testing the blood glucose because a change over can drop the BGs by up to 100 points and we don’t want you to have a hypo on your hands.
We are happy to help you with setting up the spreadsheet, sorting out what food to buy, how to transition safely to a low carb diet, how to learn to home test and much more.
FOOD CHART have a look on this chart and choose foods that are under 10%. What’s the zero carb food you’re asking about? Is it dry or wet? Right now, you want to feed her as much as she wants. Don’t worry about calorie counting.
You will also need some higher carb foods for that hypo box..information in the help us help you link.
This is an excellent site for diabetic cats…it has been around for more than 25 years and has very experienced people to help you.
Keep asking lots of questions.
PS - You may want to share with your vet the
guidelines from the American Animal Hospital Assnfor the treatment of diabetes in both dogs and cats. the AAHA no longer recommends Caninsulin/Vetsulin for treating feline diabetes.
